Author, blogger, parent

Haven Re-opened

I start every post-Haven blog post with essentially the same idea: boy, I really love being up there. It’s true though; it’s something that I have to relearn each time we go. When I’m there I feel refreshed. Even though I know it will be enjoyable in my head, I only know it in my bones when I’m sitting on the sand, listening to the wind through the trees, smelling the pines.

I’ve been so disappointed that we didn’t get up to the Haven very much last summer, and I’m trying to make sure we do a better job this year. Not only is it enjoyable, but it recharges me in a way that nothing else really does, and I think the more time I spend there, the happier I’ll be.

And all this despite the fact that it rained all night and I almost knocked myself unconscious with tree limbs not once, but TWICE (to be fair, only one actually hit me in the head. *I* hit the other one with my head while fleeing from a third tree limb).

After last year, we were extremely nervous that the Haven would be under water again. The first year it was dry and wonderful, the second year was underwater, awful, and filled with ravenous mosquitoes, so this year is best two out of three. So far, it seems dry and mosquitoes weren’t really an issue at all.

It rained all night, but it wasn’t windy, and we all kept dry. In the morning we went out to eat and it was sunny by the time we got back. Everything was dry by the time we packed up, so no complaints on that front either. About the only real problem we had was that the air mattress leaked all night and we ended up sleeping on the ground. It was pretty uncomfortable; I don’t know how the kids do it!

We weren’t going to be there very long, so our plan was to not do any work and just enjoy it. However, we did decide to go map out the driveway a little bit. A few hours later, Sara and I had cleared out all the underbrush and small trees, and it almost looks like a driveway! We’ll need to chop down quite a few bigger trees of course, but it went from being some kind of pipe dream (“Yeah, we really ought to get around to that sometime”) to something that’s ready to go. I honestly think with a little help we could get it mostly taken care of in a day or two!

So here’s to another year of camping and land barony! And maybe even driveways!